Psalm 113#sn Psalm 113. The psalmist praises God as the sovereign king of the world who reaches down to help the needy.

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise, you servants of the Lord,

praise the name of the Lord!

2 May the Lord’s name be praised

now and forevermore!

3 From east to west#tn Heb “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” The extent is not temporal (“from sunrise to sunset”) but spatial (“from the place where the sun rises [the east] to the place where it sets [the west].” In the phenomenological language of OT cosmology, the sun was described as rising in the east and setting in the west.

the Lord’s name is deserving of praise.

4 The Lord is exalted over all the nations;

his splendor reaches beyond the sky.#tn Heb “above the sky [is] his splendor.”

5 Who can compare to the Lord our God,

who sits on a high throne?#tn Heb “the one who makes high to sit.”

6 He bends down to look#tn Heb “the one who makes low to see.”

at the sky and the earth.

7 He raises the poor from the dirt,

and lifts up the needy from the garbage pile,#sn The language of v. 7 is almost identical to that of 1 Sam 2:8.